AFSA Conference Subsidy Program

AFSA is pleased to announce the updated framework for Conference Subsidy. We believe it is crucially important for SAF students to attend external conferences and represent the School’s brand as being Canada’s premier school of accounting and finance.

Criteria

Conferences eligible for the AFSA Conference subsidy program must be conferences that demonstrate the ability of both a specific educational focus, and clearly offer the ability to professionally develop delegates in attendance in soft skills of some form. Finally, conferences eligible for this program should offer the opportunity for students to openly represent Waterloo and the School of Accounting and Finance.

It should also be noted that conferences under the AFSA Goes for Gold and SAF Conference Subsidy programs are not eligible for this joint subsidy program.

Students eligible to apply must:

Demonstrate the ability to represent AFSA and the SAF with strong ambassadorship

Must be in a SAF program; AFM, CFM, Math/CPA, Biotech/CPA, MAcc or related graduate programs (i.e. Post Baccalaureate in Accounting)

Be able to provide more information regarding the conference if requested to do so

Amount & Payment Logistics

AFSA will determine an approximate amount per term – $2,000 for Fall 2015, $1,500 for Winter 2016, and $500 for Spring 2016 – for external conference subsidies. This amount is derived from the available information at the time and based on conferences available, historical and estimated attendance, costs, and resource projections. The total conference subsidy may exceed this amount depending on budgeting projections for both available resources and costs for future terms.

If the total applications for conference subsidy exceed the budgeted amount, the subsidy for all students may be reduced by a percentage so that all applicants may benefit from the subsidy. Our goal is to provide the maximum possible benefit to all students who are representing SAF and AFSA in good fashion via external conferences. Thus fluctuations may occur in the total Conference Subsidy provided to students from term to term.

There is a maximum of 1 subsidy per term, per student. You may apply to more than one. In past years, your first application was processed. For 2015-2016, we are willing to apply the subsidy towards the conference that would provide the most benefit to the student applying for the subsidy multiple times.

AFM, Math/CA, and CFM students

The maximum individual subsidy provided by AFSA will be up to 25% of the delegate fees, not exceeding $100. The AFSA subsidy will be matched by the School of Accounting and Finance, and Faculty of Mathematics. It will also be matched by the Accounting and Finance Endowment Fund. Total subsidy will be up to 75%, not exceeding $300.

In the event that the delegate has placed first, second, or third in a case competition component of the conference being subsidized, the student will be eligible for a further $50 subsidy (or 25% of the conference delegate fee, whichever is the lesser), to also be matched by the School of Accounting and Finance, or Faculty of Mathematics.

Biotech/CA students

The maximum individual subsidy provided by AFSA will be up to 25% of the delegate fees, not exceeding $50. A matched subsidy provided by the Faculty of Science will be determined on a case by case basis. Please contact Kashif Memon at kmemon@uwaterloo.ca for details.

In the event that the delegate has placed first, second, or third in a case competition component of the conference being subsidized, the student will be eligible for a further $50 subsidy (or 25% of the conference delegate fee, whichever is the lesser). Again, matching of this further subsidy by the Faculty of Science will be determined on a case by case basis.

Deadlines

You must apply for your subsidy by the following dates:

Fall deadline: November 30, 2015 (conference from August 2015 through November 2015)

Winter deadline: April 1st, 2016 (conferences from December 2015 through March 2016)

Spring deadline: July 28th, 2016 (conferences from April 2016 through July 2016)

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About UWAFSA

The Accounting & Finance Student Association (AFSA) is a student run organization composed of students in Accounting & Financial Management, Biotechnology/CA, Computing & Financial Management and Mathematics/CA. Our goal is to meet the specific needs of accounting and finance students at the University of Waterloo.

AFSA is a proud member of the Canadian Association of Business Students (CABS). CABS brings together commerce societies similar to AFSA from universities across Canada and oversees the execution of multiple conferences which AFSA and our SAF students are stakeholders and participants in. AFSA has leveraged its CABS membership to learn about best practices from other members schools, which has led to the work on AFSA's Goes for Gold conference program, AFSA's potential commerce levy, and AFSA's potential standing as a student society within FEDS. AFSA has been a member since Spring term of 2013.